The Colors of All the Cattle

This installment in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series is set in Gaborone, Botswana, and follows Precious Ramotswe, founder of the country's only private detective agency, as she is drawn into local politics while investigating a hit-and-run case.

The story opens with Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, Mma Ramotswe's husband and owner of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, reflecting on his deep pride in his wife's kindness and embodiment of Botswana's best qualities. At the detective agency, Mma Ramotswe's colleague Grace Makutsi reads aloud from a magazine article asking whether the reader's life has a point. A questionnaire prompts Mma Ramotswe to consider her recent accomplishments; she finds few beyond routine work and caring for her foster children, Puso and Motholeli. Though she dismisses the article, a seed of doubt takes root.

When Mma Ramotswe visits her old friend Mma Potokwane, the formidable matron of the local Orphan Farm, she encounters Mpilo, a small, silent boy of about six with mysterious scars on his neck. Over tea, Mma Ramotswe confides her sense that her life lacks direction. Mma Potokwane dismisses this but raises a more pressing subject: a proposed Big Fun Hotel, planned next to the town cemetery. The hotel is widely opposed, but the city council appears poised to approve it under financial pressure. Mma Potokwane reveals that a council seat is about to become vacant and urges Mma Ramotswe to stand for election. Mma Ramotswe protests that she has no political experience, but agrees to think about it.

Before she can call to decline, a new client arrives. Dr. Marang, an elderly and much-loved doctor from Mma Ramotswe's childhood village of Mochudi, enters the office leaning on his daughter, Constance. His face bears the effects of Bell's palsy, a condition causing facial paralysis, compounded by injuries from a hit-and-run accident. The police investigated but found nothing. The family needs to identify the driver to claim insurance compensation for nursing costs; the only clue is Dr. Marang's memory that the car was blue. Mma Ramotswe, moved by the doctor's friendship with her late father, Obed Ramotswe, refuses any fee and promises to do her best.

Mma Potokwane soon arrives with a nomination form. Mma Ramotswe protests until Mma Potokwane reveals that the only other candidate is Violet Sephotho, Mma Makutsi's longtime nemesis from the Botswana Secretarial College. If Mma Ramotswe does not stand, Violet wins unopposed. Mma Makutsi declares it a matter of duty to Botswana. Every alternative candidate declines, and when Mma Potokwane invokes the word "duty," Mma Ramotswe signs the form.

A parallel storyline develops around Charlie, the agency's young part-time trainee detective and part-time mechanic. Charlie's life is defined by financial struggle: he has no car, wears fraying clothes, and shares a small room in the impoverished neighborhood of Old Naledi with two young cousins. He has been seeing Queenie-Queenie, a young woman who works at a fashionable dress shop. Unknown to Charlie, she is the daughter of Lucas Modikwe, one of Botswana's wealthiest men, who built a transport empire from a single truck. She conceals her wealth, wanting to be loved for herself. Her brother Hercules, a championship body-builder who acts as protective gatekeeper over her romantic life, challenges Charlie to arm-wrestle upon meeting him, leaving Charlie with his arm in a sling.

Charlie suggests the hit-and-run driver would have needed bodywork repair. His friend Eddie in Mochudi runs a side business fixing car bodies. Mma Ramotswe sends Charlie and his fellow apprentice, Fanwell, to investigate. Eddie denies knowledge of any blue car, but Charlie secures his grudging cooperation by referencing a past favor: Years earlier, he helped Eddie evade the angry father of a pregnant girlfriend by concocting a cover story. Eddie later arrives at the garage with a threatening message from the car's owner: Charlie is "meat for the hyenas." Not long after, someone throws a brick through Charlie's bedroom window, narrowly missing one of his cousins.

Mma Ramotswe attempts to withdraw from the election, but Mma Potokwane offers a compromise: Mma Ramotswe need only serve one year, perhaps 18 months, and can resign at any time. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni accepts the situation with resigned admiration, praising his wife as "an eighty-four-horse-power, six-cylinder heroine."

The campaign moves forward. Mma Makutsi drafts a manifesto attacking Violet, which is diplomatically shelved. She also visits Gobe Moruti, the developer behind the Big Fun Hotel, posing as a representative of her husband Phuti Radiphuti's Double Comfort Furniture Store. Moruti is fully aware of her identity and assumes she has come to negotiate a corrupt bargain, revealing he has already had "very satisfactory conversations" with Violet. Meanwhile, Violet's extravagant campaign promises flood the town, and a poll shows her far ahead. Mma Ramotswe insists on honest wording for her own poster: "I am Mma Ramotswe. I am not much, but I promise you I'll do my best." In an interview with the Botswana Daily News, she says plainly that the Big Fun Hotel would be disrespectful to the deceased, putting "drinking and shouting" next to their graves. The headline, "An Honest Woman Speaks," resonates deeply with voters.

When Charlie confesses his fear about the threats, Mma Ramotswe invites him to stay at her home on Zebra Drive. He settles in, bonding with Puso, and Mma Ramotswe observes that he is maturing. Charlie, feeling he cannot match Queenie-Queenie's family wealth, takes her to dinner intending to end the relationship, but she leaves, offended, before he can fully explain.

On election day, Mma Ramotswe goes to vote. In the booth, overcome by the modesty her father instilled in her, she finds herself unable to vote for herself and marks Violet's name instead. Outside, a bank security guard named John Maphephu tells her everyone he knows plans to vote for her. Sitting in her van, she senses the presence of her late father. He tells her not to be afraid and reminds her, "You have Botswana."

That same day, she and Charlie drive to Mochudi to pursue the Marang case. Through Sister Montsho, a clinic nurse and childhood friend of Mma Ramotswe's, they are directed to Eddie's mother, Mma Lelotong. Charlie confesses what he has been concealing: Eddie is the hit-and-run driver. Charlie recognized that Eddie's currently red car had been repainted from its original blue. Mma Lelotong confirms the car changed color after Charlie's first visit. Rather than involving the police, Mma Ramotswe proposes that the mother use her authority to compel an apology and restitution.

Mma Ramotswe wins the election. At her first, and only, council meeting two days later, the main agenda item is the Big Fun Hotel. After heated debate, the vote splits evenly until Mma Ramotswe, who momentarily forgot she had a vote, casts the deciding ballot against the hotel. The chairman and several supporters resign immediately, dissolving the council, but the Big Fun Hotel has been stopped. Her political career lasts only a few days, ending after one council meeting, and she is relieved to be "an ordinary citizen again."

Dr. Marang and Constance visit to report that Mma Lelotong compelled Eddie to apologize, sell his car, and pay compensation. Dr. Marang has also arranged for Eddie to teach basketball to young people through a youth project, his height making him well suited. Mma Ramotswe affirms that everyone deserves a second chance.

The novel closes with a celebratory picnic at a dam. Mma Potokwane brings children from the Orphan Farm, including Mpilo, who is transformed: bright, communicative, and smiling. New shoes Mma Potokwane bought him sparked the change. Charlie shares that he has contacted Queenie-Queenie, who is willing to see him again, and he has been invited to meet her parents. Lying on a rug under the acacia trees, Mma Ramotswe thinks of her father tending cattle in heaven and reflects that love returned to the one who gives it is like the first rain, "which washed away the pain and sadness of the world."